Mystery radio, French? from Golborne.

[boater sam]

               

Tried to escape without buying too much, but Mike Barker thrust this set at me just as I was leaving!
Bought as a breaker but now I am not so sure, if I can find some service info it may get fixed.
It looks to be French, no back and no makers name on the front.

Serial number 161300. Appears to be 240v

Odd valve line up, ECH81, EBF80, EF94, EL90, EZ80, EM34.

AC only, proper transformer. Odd caps are by "CAPA", clear plastic tubes with tar end seals, bet they are all leaky, there is condensation inside one!

Bowden cable drive from the centre knob to rotate the double ferrite rod aerial.

Second IF Tx is under the chassis.

The chassis appears to be bolted to a ply panel along with the speaker in the front of the Bakelite cabinet, looks very difficult to get out, loads of screws and nuts.

Short, Medium, Long, with a Bandspread band, no English stations on the tuning scale.

Any clever folk out there who could put a name to it please?

[pwdrive]

Schneider Melodie.

Lawrence.

[pwdrive]

http://www.lesite-tsf-de-gilles.fr/SCHNE...8%5D-1.jpg

Possibly...

Lawrence.

[Joe]

Certainly looks like it: http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/schneider_melodie.html

— Joe

[boater sam]

Wow, that was fast!

Dead right.

There are some clever Bs on this forum.
Thanks, next question.

Is it worth restoring without the back, badge and one wrong Knob? How unusual is it?

There are a lot of caps to change too.

[Joe]

It depend how you define "Worth."

What I'd be inclined to do is change the Grid Coupler, stick some juice up it and see what happens. If the transformers and valves seem OK it's worth doing doing something with. If not you've hopefully got some useful parts.

A back would certainly be an easy thing to make and knobs can be cast. The badge would likely be a problem but it should be possible to make that area look decent even in not 'correct.'

— Joe

[Murphyv310]

Hi
Not a hugely common set in the UK, I'd be inclined to fix it, look out for knobs and the badge. Good luck.

[Radio Fixer]

I had a Nocturn from 1948 which was a well made radio.  It had more pilot lights than any set I have ever come across, even with the bulbs under run them being all alight for long was unusual.  It had edge light lamps and ones that went on and off with the wavebands. Massively heavy, about 2ft long with the speaker in the roof.

   

Here is another Schneider that I have pics on the disk for.  A better looking radio to me and as you can see they didn't go in for complex back panels.  A lot of drilling of 3 mm hardboard though (wear a good face mask !! ).

   
   

It should work and sound good so if you like it then worth a restore ... Yours is unusual as it is marked with SW M, LW so they must have had export in mind.

Gary

[Nowhere-Man]

Tried to escape without buying too much, but Mike Barker thrust this set at me just as I was leaving!
Bought as a breaker but now I am not so sure, if I can find some service info it may get fixed.
It looks to be French, no back and no makers name on the front.

Serial number 161300. Appears to be 240v

Odd valve line up, ECH81, EBF80, EF94, EL90, EZ80, EM34.

AC only, proper transformer. Odd caps are by "CAPA", clear plastic tubes with tar end seals, bet they are all leaky, there is condensation inside one!

Bowden cable drive from the centre knob to rotate the double ferrite rod aerial.

Second IF Tx is under the chassis.

The chassis appears to be bolted to a ply panel along with the speaker in the front of the Bakelite cabinet, looks very difficult to get out, loads of screws and nuts.

Short, Medium, Long, with a Bandspread band, no English stations on the tuning scale.

Any clever folk out there who could put a name to it please?

My first step I think would be to test the transformer alone with a dim bulb tester. I'd be testing the voltages after doing an Ohms test first. If the transformer seems not to be leaking, the odds tilt strongly towards making it a viable project.

[boater sam]

Had time today to have a quick look at this set.

The bakelite case is intact which surprised me as it feels to be quite thinly moulded, but very dirty and dull.

A check round with the meter revealed one blown pilot bulb, transformers OK. No shorts. The 6" remains  of the mains wires were rotten rubber, elsewhere it is pvc. 
Tuning cap mounting rubbers rotten and collapsed but the unusual cord drive still works well.

Valve filaments all intact. So on the lamp limiter it went. No frights so gave it full mains. Electrolytic caps not getting warm as the HT came up, and voila! Sound! With a bit of aerial wire there are sounds on all wavelengths.

HT a bit low, shorting the anode of the EF94 to chassis brought a big increase, so the capacitor to the g1 of the EL90 output valve was leaking. Tried to restuff it but the caps are glass tubes sealed with pitch, very thin and fragile. A new yellow peril replaced it.
That cooled the output valve's ardour and restored a good HT voltage, sounds good too.

EM34 tuning eye looks like a recent "Dario" replacement and is nice and bright, but not responding, so the AVC must be not working.

I will try to get the circuit diagram and info and bring this set up to scratch. Will need to make a back board, for which I will need to find a good 'photo, the Radiomuseum one is not really good enough, need one of the larger knobs too.

Not bad for a throw away purchase for very little cash.

Any bits or info would be gratefully received. A project for next April.